The Island Collection
by sldlovestv18
Summary: A collection of one-shots, mostly surrounding the adventures of class 77-B after the events of Danganronpa 3, of them living their life out on the island. Most stories are probably going to centered around Hajime, because I can't help myself. Chapter 3: It's Therapy Day, and it doesn't go well for Hajime. Rating may change later. Hope you enjoy, R&R!
1. Hajime Needs a Haircut

The first thing Hajime thought was when he woke up was how badly he wanted to get the hell out of the pod he was in, but when he tried, he was greeting with lots to sharp tugging in lots of different places, several of which he didn't want there to be. He was still hooked up with brain wave monitoring, IVs, the works. He heard yelling about someone already waking up, that must be about him. The second thing he thought about was how full his head felt. Then he heard it.

_I didn't expect this._

Izuru. Then he remembered what happened.

_The chances of you ever getting strong enough to return was so slim, it was almost impossible._

_**How is this going to work? Are we me or you?**_

___Both. Right now you have control._

_**Can you take control at all?**_

He was curious. There was a pause. Then he felt dizzy, got a headache, and the arm that didn't have IVs moved against his will and _punched a hole in the pod, what the fuck._

_Yes, I can, though it seems rather limited right now. You don't have to worry about me interfering much, doing so would be pointless._

_**Great.**_

__"Hajime Hinata?" He heard someone ask in a moderately worried tone, Makoto, he realized soon after. It was Makoto. He was probably freaked out because the hole he just punched in the pod. How boring.

Did… he just think that?

"Yes. Mostly." He answered, voice hoarse from disuse.

"Here, let me get you out of here." Naegi opened the pod and started removing his various tubes. "You are the first one up out of your friends."

"And the others, have you found out anything about them?"

"The others, the ones that died, are in comas, just like we thought, we are looking to see if their data was saved. Well, Togami is looking."

Hajime nodded, then having his third major line of thought. He felt his hair fall in his face when he nodded, his hair was still long. He needed a haircut, Hajime had short hair, and he was Hajime so he needed to have short hair. If he was going to live as him, he needed to have haircut. Naegi seemed to notice his distress.

"Do you need something?"

"Haircut, I need a haircut." Hajime nodded again. "This isn't my hair, it's his, I need it gone."

"Oh-"

"We can cut it ourselves." Hajime heard his body say without his consent. Izuru.

"What, no-"

"I have the ultimate hairdressing talent, we can do it, what's mine is yours."

"I don't think I want to test how well your talents work with us sharing a body on my _hair_." Hajime then looked over at Naegi, who was looking pretty frightened seeing the older man argue with himself.

"He's really in there, huh?" He asked, examining Hajime closer now. "So, haircut?"

"Yes." He knew that he could probably handle it himself, but if he had trouble accessing Izuru's talents, he could end up messing up his hair in a way not easily fixed.

"Kirigiri, do think you could help Hajime out?"

"Of course." Kirigiri walked over and started leading Hajime away.

_You are sure about this?_

_**Why would I be unsure about a haircut?**_

___You still have no memory of becoming me?_

_**Yeah, that's the only huge gap in my memory, what does that have to do with this?**_

___You'll see._

Soon enough Hajime was plopped down in the bathroom while Kirigiri wen to go get scissors. He finally looked in a mirror, at which point he saw his eyes. One of them was bright red, what the hell!?

_What a strange way to present that we are one, it's almost interesting._

_**Almost!?**_

___No wonder they tried so hard to erase you, you're really annoying. And loud._

_**You son of a-**_

__"Can you sit down?" He heard Kirigiri ask. When did she get back? He obeyed her anyway. His brain felt weird for a second, before realizing what it was. Izuru was feeling smug, but why? Whole chunks of hair started getting cut off, longer pieces first, before smaller pieces started to away until his hair length got closer to his head and Kirigiri started being more careful, starting to actually style it. Things where going fine, but suddenly Kirigiri's hands stilled, and Hajime felt Izuru's smugness rise. Then she started feeling his actual scalp. What the hell?

"What did they do to you?" She whispered, and Hajime just got more confused.

"Huh?" The young man asked, she started pushing his hair around, examining his scalp.

"So many scars, how many operations did they do?" She murmured, and then it hit him. He must have scars from the various brain operations he must have had becoming Izuru. "Small, needles maybe?" Just hearing her mentioning the operation was giving him a migraine.

"Kirigiri, can you not do that?" He had never felt so violated. He valued is privacy, and her examining his scars made him feel exposed.

_I told you so._

Hajime had noticed that Izuru's personality had sort of have blended with his, he could just feel it, and that sassy response from Izuru let him know that the same thing happened to the talented half.

"I'm sorry." She apologized and went back to cutting his hair. Things were silent, awkward, but silent.

"I'm sorry they did this to you." Why was she-

Then he realized, Hope's Peak's headmaster's name was Jin Kirigiri, maybe it was a coincidence, but he had a feeling.

"I don't think your father knew the specifics of what the project entailed."

"I see Izuru's analytical talents are kicking in." Was that what just happened? He could hear the smile in her voice.

"Maybe."

She finished the haircut, he went out to see he friends awaking up.

##############################################################################

The events of the final killing game at the future foundation were several months behind them, and things were going well on the island. As a preventive measure, they give regular updates to Naegi and Kirigiri to make sure nobody was relapsing into despair. They were sent supplies every once and awhile, as a thank you for saving their asses (they were pretty sure what supplies they got had more to do with Togami than the rest of them). First thing was first, they got most things on the islands up and running, and now they were making plans for supply runs for things they needed to fix what they had all destroyed, with plans to make several new buildings down the line, and if they were going to do all that, they needed materials. Of course, everything wasn't perfect, problems did pop up.

It turned out saying they accepted the weight of what they had done was a lot easier than actually accepting it. Everybody was in a pretty rough state psychologically once all the dust finally cleared, but they were getting there, day by day. Some people were more damaged than others, depending on what sort of person they are and just how much they remembered. While the reset had gave back a good chunk of their memories, not all of it was quite there, and every once in a while, someone would remember something and, well, there would be an incident. And that was just about their time as Ultimate Despair, the events of their own killing game was still being avoided heavily. Lucky enough, they had Hajime, who was taking becoming the sudden leader of the class rather well and utilizing his talents to the fullest to help his classmates. His and Izuru's personalities had blended together a lot more since exiting the pod, and they weren't sure if that was a good thing or not but they figured they would just roll with it. They were mostly just glad he and Izuru weren't talking to each other as much, because it freaked them all out. They also didn't like it when Hajime says he was responsible for things Izuru did, but they weren't ready to have that fight with him yet. Though they would occasionally see Hajime actively fight off Izuru, and he still didn't use his more dangerous talents, just incase Izuru got any ideas to 'make things interesting'. Which brings them to now.

"Hinata, why haven't you been getting your hair cut?" Mahiru asked, raising a brow at the young man as they ate breakfast. Hajime looked over and immediately looked like he had been caught doing something bad.

"Is it a problem? I just thought that I might be more comfortable with it longer, now that Izuru and I are more at peace with each other. He- I like it longer." That was almost the truth, his hair was now down to just past his chin, and he wasn't a fan. Izuru himself didn't care much about his hair. But, Hajime didn't trust himself, the part of himself that was Izuru, to not try out some funny business once he had some scissors in hand. The part of him that was Izuru was annoyed at the distrust.

"No, it just seems a little weird I guess."

"Well, don't worry, it's fine, it's just a style choice."

And the subject was dropped… for about two weeks. This is where the group's trauma and mildly spotty memories came in. It turns out they had a few encounters with Izuru during their years of them being Remnants, several of them not being super pleasant. So one day, he had been reading over a book, rather bored, when Mikan went a tapped him on the shoulder, somebody probably got hurt doing something stupid and she needed his help. He turned to face her, still looking rather bored, and when Mikan saw an unamused red eye glint at her through dark hair, it triggered a rather nasty memory, causing her to break down weeping in the restaurant. It attracted the attention of everybody who was there for lunch. Shoot. Hajime had sprung up to try and help her, when she said it.

"K-Kamakura… No, p-p-please." She whimpered, and that had his eyebrows go up. He didn't mind being called by that, but everybody on the island made a point of calling him Hajime Hinata. That's when he realized what happened and he immediately tapped into his Psychology related talents to try and sooth her. Peko had noticed what happened and figured it out really quickly. And surely, as soon as Mikan was calmed down, Peko walked right up to him.

"Come over to my cabin for a haircut tonight." It wasn't a suggestion. Peko was sort of the resident hair stylist, as Hajime still wasn't up to trying that talent (not wanting Izuru to try something), because she was good with sharp things and had the most experience cutting hair, since she always cut her and Fuyuhiko's hair. And since Hajime didn't feel like fighting Peko, he did come there that night.

"So, where do I go?" He asked, looking around her cabin.

"The bathroom, dumbass." He heard Kuzuryu say. It wasn't really surprising that he was here, Peko and Kuzuryu spent most of their time together out of habit.

"Right." He nodded, feeling kind of stupid, his hair flopping around with a nod. He's glad he's going to be rid of it. He went and sat on the toilet, waiting for Peko to start, and she did so without a word. Snip snip snip, hair fell away. And then when she got to the styling part, the detail work, he noticed her still her work briefly. She had seen.

"Do you remember how many surgeries they did?" She asked in a way that he could see was her trying to be gentle.

"No. I still can't remember most of the project, but I don't think I had too many, most of the project involved minimally invasive stuff, I think. At least, that's what I assume." He was speaking in a low voice, and he looked down at his arms. His arms where covered in little need scars, from having large needles jabbed into him over and over for six months. While he was fairly certain that most of the work was through drugs and machines, but the more he looked, the more he found proof of smaller surgeries, so it didn't really surprise him that they had dug around his brain, probably trying to 'fix' it. Prepare it.

"It really is awful what they did to you." Peko resumed cutting his hair, and he was surprised she was talking about this. She thought she would just move on.

"I volunteered, I knew it would be rough." Hajime shrugged a shoulder, being careful to not move his head.

"Did you know that they would torture you, erase your personality, and try and eradicate your memories?"

"Well, no."

"Then you really didn't sign up for what happened, did you?"

"I guess not." He didn't sound like he meant it, but she hadn't expected that he would.

"Why did you sign up for that dumb project anyway?" Fuyuhiko asked, Hajime had sense that he was there, but was hoping he wouldn't say anything.

"Does it really matter?" Hajime tries not to bring up how obsessed he was with Hope's Peak and being talented, because it was embarrassing and would only prompt comparisons to Komeda, which he'd rather avoid. Thinking back on it, it really was pathetic. He been willing to do anything at all to be talented, even have himself mutilated and experimented on.

"Yeah, it kind of does, aren't you the one who is always on us about how we need to talk shit out if we ever want to properly move on and forgive ourselves? Or maybe that just doesn't apply to you?" Hajime fell quiet, hoping that would signal he wasn't going to be answering. He heard a sigh. "Look, I- we, just want to help you, like you have been helping us. We're trying to be better."

"There's nothing to help, I don't even remember the project past the first two or three weeks." Everything went silent. Peko soon finished the haircut and Hajime got up and left. Hajime decided he would learn to trust his Izuru half a bit more if it meant he didn't have to do that again.

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:**

** Welp… So this is a thing I'm going to do now, I guess. Nobody wanted it, nobody asked for it, but I'm doing it anyway. I'm sorry if the characters seem a bit off, it might be that way for a bit, until I get used to writing them. Most chapters will be more humorous then this, I just wanted to start off simple to get a hang of things. I hope you enjoy this collection, I got lots of ideas (and am pretty open to suggestions), and plans. Goodbye, duckies.**


	2. A Music Party

Ibuki loved it when the boat came back from supply runs. Not only did it mean that they could keep on improving things, including some houses they were starting to build, but Hajime always made sure to bring in a bunch of cool stuff, too. It always made everybody super happy. Now, the way supply runs went, according to the people that went on them (Hajime, Kazuichi, and Nekomaru), They would sail out, sell things they made on the island at the cities remaining in the world and use the money to buy things, but they would also loot the ruins for anything cool they could get their hands on. They had only gone on four so far, since they only went every few months. Last time, Hajime had gotten her a cool guitar, he said he found it in an abandoned music store and that he hardly had to clean any blood off it. That had made her really happy. The cool thing he had brought back this time was a bunch of small, fluffy animals for Gundam. More hamsters, some gerbils, bunnies, and even some guinea pigs. Ibuki had never seen Gundam smile has much as when he pulled that bunny out of the jacket he had been wearing and told him that there were three more like it outside and more. The first supply run out, Hajime made sure to get artist stuff for Ryota. Even helped him design custom programs to use. That had made the artist super happy, and he had since started on a little short film that he said would be done in a few more years. There was more, of course, but you get the point. Every time the group came back with a bunch of new stuff for them to play with, it was great, the mood on the island was electric, at least it felt that way to Ibuki. She was on her way back to her cabin to play her guitar a little, she was working on a song that would really blow everybody's socks off, when she heard it. Yup, there was no mistaking it. Someone was playing some music. She looked around shocked for a few seconds, before using her super musician hearing to hone in on the source. Hajime's cabin.

She bolted to his door and swung it open without knocking, there Hajime was laying on his bed, listening to the little sound system he had probably looted, given the scorch mark on the edge of it. Well, he was, but when she opened the door he sat up and paused the music.

"Ibuki!" His eyes widened slightly in surprise.

"Hajime brought music back and didn't tell Ibuki!" She rushed around the bed and saw it, two boxes filled with CDs.

"I was going to tell you once I-" He had started before witnessing her dump the boxes out on the bed. "Hey!"

"You got a lot of stuff." Ibuki said as she shifted through them. "Why did you get so much?"

"Well, I have a lot of musical talents now, and I was wondering if they had effected the way I enjoy music, or what sort of music I like. So, I just grabbed a bunch of it to test it out." Hajime shrugged a shoulder, lamenting the state of his room. Such a mess.

"Has it?"

"So far, yeah it has. Turns out when you know a lot about music and know how to analyze it, lots of music becomes enjoyable. My tastes have widened a lot, though I haven't made my way through it all." He answered, and she stilled for a second before grinning ear to ear.

"Hey, we should totally hold a concert!" She punched at the air, in a victory pose. "That'd be a great way to test your talents out, and it would be so much fun to see if we have stage chemistry!"

"H-hey now, I don't think I'm ready for all that." Hajime waved his hands in protest. "I don't think I have the bravery or stage presence for that, and it seems a little too showy for me, but… I have had an idea of what to do with all this music, if you want to help." He gave a smile of his own and she looked curious.

#################################################################################

"Come on, slow pokes! Move your feet!" Ibuki hollered, leading everybody to the Titty Typhoon just like her and Hajime planned.

"Why do we have to be here?" Mahiru asked.

"Yes, it seems rather strange for us to all be gathered here. There is no event planned that we have been told about." Gundam said, one of his new hamsters peaking out of his scarf. Everybody else started grumbling as well.

"Just a minute." Ibuki backed up to the door and knocked. "Haaajjjiimmmeeeeeee, we're here!"

"Just a minute!" There was of shuffling, a thud, more shuffling followed by him calling out again. "Bring them in!"

And with that Ibuki flung the door open and lead the others into the dark building, the door shut behind them… when music started to play and Ibuki turned the lights on, revealing that a rather large party had been set up, with music, food, the works, with Hajime standing at a table where the music was controlled from.

"Surprise!" Hajime and Ibuki yelled out, throwing their hands out in celebration.

"A party?"

"A party!" Hajime affirmed, walking over to the group, who were still taking things in. Ibuki and Hajime had done the place up right, with streamers, lights, and even a functional disco ball. "We've made a lot of progress on the island, and I thought we should celebrate. I finally got enough stuff to throw something together."

"This is awesome!" Akane hollered, running over to the food table, and that seemed to signal everybody to enter the room and start the party, though not before thanking Hajime. It was slow starting at first, but it didn't take long before everything was in full swing.

Fuyuhiko had asked Peko to dance, and she agreed, even though she didn't really know how to dance. Akane, Nekomaru, and Teruteru were still eating, discussing the food. Sonia and Gundam were in the corner, Sonia asking about dancing and Gundam being too embarrassed to agree, Kazuichi offered to dance with her, but Sonia blew him off and he went to a different corner to sulk. Several of the girls had grouped together to dance, they looked like they were having a good time. Hajime was so busy surveying the group, he hadn't noticed Nagito was talking to him.

"Huh?" He said, failing to catch what Nagito had said.

"You weren't even listening? Well, I suppose that makes sense, why would somebody with so many talents listen to t-"

"What do you want, Nagito?" The former reserve course student interrupted, not wanting to jump down that rabbit hole of self-loathing right now.

"While you were gone on the supply run, somebody carved 'Gay Baby Jail' on my cabin door again." He shook his head, rubbing the back of his neck.

"They didn't try and trap you in there again, did they?"

"They forgot to bolster the windows this time." Hajime sighed. Sometimes, when Nagito was being particularly annoying, and Hajime wasn't there to reel him in, they would barricade him in his cabin and carve 'Gay Baby Jail' on the door. This had three times before, one time while he wasn't even on a supply run.

"I'll fix the door tomorrow."

"Thank you." Nagito's eyes glanced over the group. "You really did a good job here, this party is really making everybody's hopes shine."

"Yeah, I thought we could use it."

"Hey, Hajime, come over and dance!" Ibuki said, trying to wave him over to the girl group. All the girls voiced their agreement, even if Hiyoko's way of encouragement was saying something along the lines of how he should come over and show them how lame of a dancer he was.

"No, I'm fine over here." He put up his hand to gesture that he was fine, but just as he did, his wrist was snatched up by Nagito and he was being dragged over. It didn't take much to stop him, what with his super powered body, but it was still annoying. The puffy haired young man kept pulling on his wrist like that would help.

"Come on, don't you want to enjoy the party you set up? Seems like a waste to set up a party and stand on the side the whole time. Plus, it would be rude to not give the ladies what they want." Hajime faltered a little at that, which gave Nagito enough time to get behind him and shove him into the girls, which have been fine if he hadn't been shoved into Mikan, who promptly fell over, legs spread eagle as usual.

"Mikan!" Hajime gasped, turning to help her, only to get an eyeful of her undies, at which point he turned and used his hand to cover his vision while the girls got her up. He turned back as she was straitening her dress back out, tears in her eyes. "I'm sorry about that, Mikan."

"I-it's fine… b-b-but…" Mikan started to look confidant through her tears, like she was going to say something brave, but just as soon as the look appeared, it disappeared. "I-it's my f-f-fault, you can draw on m-me if you-" Mahiru put a hand on her shoulder and shook her head. Mikan looked at her and Mahiru nodded towards Hajime, like she was telling her to try again. Mikan nodded, the bravery returning. She stared Hajime down. "What I-I meant was. It's fine… b-but I'll forgive you i-if you dance with me f-first." She held out her hand to him. The girls smiled in approval.

"I'd love to." As soon he said that, he was pulled into the center of the group of girls, with him and Mikan at the center, dancing, with the girls forming some sort of dancing barrier around them. Hajime was trying his best to dance as he normally would, not tapping into any talents, but as he saw the other dancing, he started to feel self-conscious and started to tap into some of his abilities, but the very minute he did- Mikan gave him a little swat.

"D-don't do that."

"Huh?"

"I didn't ask I-izuru to d-d-dance, I asked you. Don't u-use your t-talents." She shook her and gave him a firm that looked kind of ridiculous since she was still dancing.

"We are the same person, you know, you ask one of us you ask us both." Mikan shook her head.

"I remember m-meeting Izuru. I don't to dance with him, I w-want to dance with the boy wh-who spent time with m-me in the simulation." Mikan looked like she was going to start crying again. "S-so, p-p-please…"

"No talents, got it." He nodded, complying with her request.

After a couple songs, Mahiru hopped into Mikan's place, with Mikan taking her place in the barrier. This happened again in a few more songs, with Hiyoko this time. It was around that time he finally felt at the glares digging at his head, looked to see Teruteru and Kazuichi looking at him, clearly upset he was getting so much attention from the girls. He then realized something. With Nekomaru paired off with Akane, Fuyuhiko paired with Peko, and Gundam paired off with Sonia, the only male dance partners the girls had left were Ryota, the imposter, Teruteru, Kazuichi, himself, and Nagito. Ryota and the imposter were in a corner talking to themselves, and were both so shy the girls wouldn't want to bother them, Nagito was crazy, Teruteru was a perv who would grope them, and Kazuichi was… Kazuichi, so that just left…

He held back a sigh, he could practically hear the conversation the girls had. Dancing with other girls was fun, but they wanted to dance with a boy, but who? So they hatched a plan, to share 'the one good boy' left, with Mikan calling first dance. How boring. He felt bad for the other boys, but he couldn't really blame the girls either. It was getting to around the time that he would dance with Ibuki when he realized she wasn't around anymore. What-

"Alrighty, ladies and gentlemen! We are going to slow things down, so grab somebody and hold them close for this tasty slow jam!" Ibuki yelled as the song switched over to a slow song. Hajime's eyes widened, they had agreed to no slow songs, so things didn't get awkward. He looked around to see the girls around him vacated the area, though Mahiru and Hiyoko had decided to dance together. Hajime back up against the stage to watch. Gundam and Sonia were together, Sonia smiling and dancing effortlessly, and Gundam trying his best while red in the face. Nekomaru and Akane were a sight to see with the size difference between them. Fuyuhiko and Peko looked beautiful together, if a bit awkward because Peko didn't know how to slow dance, but they both looked really happy and it was good look on them. Especially Peko. He then saw the hand extended to him. The hand was Ibuki's.

"Hajime will dance with Ibuki now?" She smiled.

"To this song? You sure?"

"Yup, Ibuki is sure." She took his hand and pulled him to the floor, wrapping her arms around his neck. Hajime put his hands high up on her waist. This hadn't escaped the view of Akane.

"Yeah, Ibuki! Get some!" She hollered with a laughed, causing Nekomaru to chuckle, pick her up and readjust their position so Akane couldn't see. The rest of the room snickered and Hajime's face turned pink.

"You planned this, didn't you? We agreed no slow songs." He said in a quiet voice.

"I thought it'd be a nice surprise, and a good gift for you. You seem like the kind of boy who would spend so much time studying he wouldn't go to dances." Hajime turned an even darker shade of pink. Was he that easy to figure out?

"What does that have to do with this?"

"You do so much around the island, you spend so much time making sure everybody is happy. I wanted to return the favor, and I thought this might be good way to do it. Somebody should try and make sure you're happy too." Ibuki smiled, pulling him closer. "It can also be a thank you for that guitar."

"Ibuki, you didn't have to arrange a slow dance as gift to make me happy, I'm happy enough on my own."

"It's not polite to lie to a lady, Hajime."

"I'm not lying."

"Do you not like slow dancing with Ibuki? Am I not pretty enough? Would you have preferred Mikan?" She glanced over the girl, who had started to dance with Ryota.

"N-no, you're great, this is great- it's just… You didn't have to do it."

"I didn't do it because I had to, I did it because I wanted to, like how you want to make everybody happy." Honestly, Ibuki was kind of curious as to why Hajime was so set on everybody's happiness, but she figured it had to do with Chiaki, and Chiaki was still a sensitive topic for Hajime, she thinks.

"That's a nice thought… Thank you." Hajime smiled and Ibuki felt satisfied. She had accomplishment what she wanted to. She felt closer to Hajime now, too, for some reason. It only strengthened her resolve to one day play a song for everybody with Hajime. She could just feel that they would have awesome stage chemistry.

The song ended and the couples all dispersed, several people deciding to take a break to talk for a few minutes, including Hajime. The room descended into the sounds of loud chattering and pop music, until…

"Hey, Hajime, why didn't you say you picked up some booze while you were out?" He heard Fuyuhiko called out, pulling out a bottle of something, he couldn't tell what.

And, well, what happens from this point forward is a different story for a different time.

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:**

** Welp… New oneshot already! Also, since this is a collection that without a proper story thread or even be in order, or even have an end, I'm going to go ahead and mark it as complete. I'm still going to write plenty of chapters, don't worry. **

** So… What did you think of this one? Do have a favorite part? See you later, Duckies.**


	3. Therapy Day

Therapy Day was always a weird day on the island. After the first few times somebody had had a meltdown, Hajime, Nekomaru, and a few others had decided it was best if they did group therapy together. It was weird, because literally nobody wanted to do it, but everybody came over anyway because it did make them feel better and they all agreed that if they were going to hope to make up for what they did, they had to be okay first. They were no good to the world if their mental states fell into decline again. Hajime generally led the sessions, with Nekomaru acting as backup. They were the ones who were the most stable and had the most counseling skills. Every week, Saturday nights, for the last four months, everybody gathered in the restaurant, snacks provided by Teruteru, and they just sort of… talk things out. It had been pretty effective so far. Except, one month in Nekomaru noticed that Hajime never really shared. Two months in Fuyuhiko, Peko, and Ryota noticed, and Kazuichi noticed the next month. By the fourth month everybody else had figured it out from Kazuichi asking them about it. And so, a plot formed, well not so much of a plot as preparation for an intervention if just asking to share didn't work.

"Alright, so is there anything else?" Hajime asked, already starting to stand before actually looking at the group, seeing that they weren't also starting to stand, and sitting back down. "There is?"

"Hajime, is there anything you want to share?" Nekomaru asked and everybody looked at Hajime expectantly.

"Not really, but I don't think that was the answer you were looking for…" He scanned the room in a way that they could tell he was analyzing the situation. "Right?"

"You never share anything at the meetings!" Ibuki blurted out with absolutely no tact. "It's weird!"

"Yeah, I mean you are always talking about how therapy is good for us, that we need to talk our traumas out to work through them?" Fuyuhiko leaned forward in his chair to glare at Hajime in disappointment. "Or does that not apply to you?"

"I never said that, I just don't really have anything to share." Hajime was lying, he knew he was lying, and he wasn't even sure why he was lying, because there were several people in this room that could tell when he was lying.

"Don't lie in therapy, Hajime, therapy is an honest, judgement free zone, remember?" Nekomaru said, trying to get things back on track before things got out of control. If Hajime was one of his athletes, this would be a time where he would need quieter reassurance, given his personality, and he needed to make sure the others maintained a good environment, or he might bolt.

"I know, but… I don't really need therapy, I'm fine most of the time, and I've got a lot less to deal with than the rest of you." That was true, Hajime had learned pretty quickly that his 'classmates' had done some pretty fucked up shit, and sure he had seen some of it, but he couldn't watch all of them at once. "The most traumatic thing that happened to me was probably becoming Izuru and I can't even remember that yet." That was also true. Those memories in particular were still evading him.

"Yeah, but you still saw a bunch of horrible stuff during the Tragedy, that had to have affected you at least a little bit. Plus, your rather significant personality change, you have to be shaken. We just want to help." It was Mahiru, saying that, trying her best to speak in a soft voice.

"Look, I'm fine, I don't even _have_ all my Izuru memories. A lot more of the painful stuff is still blocked off." That was true as well, though it didn't really make the stuff he did remember any less painful. He had to survive in a hellscape of his own making, and that sucked. He had done a lot of terrible things that he hadn't felt bad about because he was, well, Izuru. He felt bad about it, but not like in the way that he did it, it was more like he felt guilty like how somebody might feel after watching a horrific accident. There was a disconnect. He couldn't really give them what they want. He wouldn't talk about something and have a cathartic cry, he'd explain something and maybe look a little guilty. "Is this really that important to you?"

"Yes." Was the group's collective response.

"Just share one little thing, man, we just want you to try." Fuyuhiko said, gesturing vaguely. Hajime sighed in resignation. Fine.

"I once killed man during a dispute over food. I was traveling between cities after watching Peko and Fuyuhiko mow down a small rival gang that had popped up, when I finally realized I was hungry and managed to find some food." Hajime looked at his toes with guilt in his eyes, looking more like a child that was found taking cookies from the jar than an adult man talking about murdering a stranger. "I had food, he wanted it, we got in an altercation. I tried using defensive techniques to be as neutral as possible, so that he would tire himself out, but I got… bored." He shuddered a bit. The topic of boredom was touchy with him, because he might not remember everything, but he remembered enough. "I ended things quickly, snapped his neck. His face had the same feral look he had attacking me, frozen on his face when he hit the ground. I kept eating my food. A rice bun, it was a rice bun." He hesitated in looking up. He didn't really want to see their faces. Would they be disappointed, or something worse. He slowly peeked up. They weren't looking at him with disappointment or disgust. Just various amounts of understanding, and sympathy.

"And how did that make you feel?" Hajime sucked in a breath and shut his eyes. This was the part he dreaded.

"Not much? Just cold detachment. Even remembering it, I don't feel bad. It's more like watching a car accident." Hajime didn't dare look up. He couldn't risk seeing them look at him like a monster, because they might have done worst things, some unspeakable things, but at least they had the good sense to be traumatized by it, to feel horrible about it.

"You think that's because of Izuru? Maybe you are just having a disconnect from what all happened because Izuru is like a different person, but he's also you, so your brain doesn't know how feel? It's all scrambled." Ibuki said, and Hajime looked up, confused that they all seemed unfazed that he had admitted to killing a man in cold blood and not feeling all that bad about it.

"It's something like that, I think?" Hajime rubbed the back of his neck. "It doesn't help that I've been having some mild… issues with empathy since merging with Izuru."

"They did poke around in your brain a lot, didn't they? Didn't you mention something like that? That they suppressed your emotions and personality to make you some kind of perfect talent container?"

"Yeah, I guess that's true." Hajime sighed, but it was still bothering him. Didn't not feeling terrible make him a monster? He knew it was terrible, the things he did, that he witnessed, and he wanted to make up for it like everybody else on the island, but it was different. They all felt terrible, they were traumatized. He just… knew he did something wrong, that he broke something and he had to fix it. He felt worse that he didn't feel bad about helping bring on what was functionally the apocalypse then he did about actually doing it. Should he tell them? They had shared a lot with him. They trusted him, a lot more than they probably should, given the part he had in the worst things that ever happened to them. But he owed it to them to share, right? They all shared, and it helped them, so it should help him, right? "It… that I don't feel bad? That doesn't make me a monster?"

The response was a jumbled mess of denials, all smashing together. A few people stood up to try and reach Hajime, but as soon as the chaos had erupted Nekomaru and Mahiru stood up to settle everybody back down.

"Hajime, you aren't a monster because you don't feel bad. You had a terrible thing done to you. It's like we've been talking about for weeks, the things we did while we brainwashed were terrible, but we were brainwashed, we didn't have full control of ourselves. If we are going to try and do the right thing a fix what we broke while we-" Nekomaru started, though the others seemed eager to get their words in.

"But I wasn't brainwashed! That's the problem, I did horrible things, not because I was brainwashed into spreading despair, but because I wanted to. Out of curiosity, out of boredom. You all at least have a decent excuse, and you have the decency to feel terrible what you did. I… don't. Even now that I have most of my old personality back, whatever they did to my brain… I just can't... The part of me that is Izuru doesn't feel bad because it all made sense, made things almost interesting, and the part of me that is Hajime doesn't feel bad because I have a weird disconnect from it and whatever they did to my brain makes it almost impossible to feel as bad about it as I should. So, both the parts of me that are me are bad, and-" Hajime rambled, resuming staring at his feet and gesturing with his hands, making less and less sense as he went on.

"Do you think we are monsters?"

"What? No." Hajime was abruptly brought out of his spiral by Nagito.

"The way I see it, you doing bad things as Izuru is the same us doing bad things when we were brainwashed. Izuru was just an emotionless, talented version of you, wasn't he?"

"Sort of." Hajime still had issues with deciding just what Hajime was, because he was him, but not really, and now he and Izuru are fused together, making the line even blurrier than it already was. He might be living as Hajime, but he was still Izuru… sort of. He doesn't even mind being called Izuru that much, though none of his 'classmates' ever did so. They liked regarding him as a whole separate entity.

"So, you weren't really yourself, even if you had your reasoning intact." Nagito said, putting on the weird air of confidence that he puts on exclusively when he's about to out smart someone. "When he were brainwashed we weren't in control, but we were just more twisted versions of ourselves. Just like when you were Izuru you were just a more twisted version of yourself. Sure, you had more… lets call it control, but the way I see it the two aren't really any different."

"I guess, but it's more complicated than that, because you guys aren't brainwashed anymore, you aren't about to go spreading despair or kickstarting the apocalypse again. I, on the other hand, am still Izuru, Izuru and I are one person now, I still get bored because of how predictable things get. I'll probably have issues with empathy for the rest on my life because of the poking around they did in my brain. My brain will never work the same ever again. It's not over for me. Yes, Hajime isn't responsible, and I'm living as Hajime, but I'm still Izuru, and Izuru is responsible." Hajime looked down again. This is exactly why he hadn't said anything before, this exact conversation. He could hear the others start protesting again, which he figured would happen. It was loud, and he wanted to disappear, to get away from here. His brain provided him with a list of talents he had that could help do just that. That would work. So he did.

And so, Hajime just sort of vanished, at least that's how it looked to the others. The room went silent, staring at the spot where he once was.

"How did he did he do that!?" Ibuki broke the silence, gesturing at Hajime's empty chair.

"He's fast, and he has literally every talent ever. There are about a dozen ways he could have disappeared, and he won't be found unless he wants to." Peko sighed, leaning back. "I told you he would run. We should have let him talk about it at his own pace."

"It's not fair that everybody else _has _to confront what happened, but _he _gets to be all vague about it." Fuyuhiko grumbled.

"Hajime cares about us all a great deal, he would have opened up eventually on his own."

"There is no point in having this fight now, it's now with. We just need to be patient and wait for him to reappear." Nekomaru said, standing up.

Nobody saw head nor hair of Hajime all week. His work was still getting done, for the most part, so that wasn't really an issue. Though, everyone was a little weirded out that he could get all that done without anybody catching a glimpse. It wasn't a surprise, but it was very strange. Eventually, Therapy Day rolled back around, everybody sat down, everything was quiet. One could almost feel the group collectively wonder if Hajime would show up, and then he just walked in the door, like he hadn't been MIA for a week.

"Oi! Where was your pathetic ass? You think can just stroll in here like that shit last week didn't happen?" Hiyoko sneered at the former Ultimate Despair and several other members cringed, worrying about driving him back away. The person sat next to her shushing her harshly.

"I think what she was trying to say was," Mahiru said, standing with an uneasy, apologetic look on her face. "We are glad you decided to come back."

"It would be hypocritical for me not to, I just needed some time to… think." Hajime said in a soft voice, taking his regular seat. He stuck his hand in his pocket and started fiddling with Chiaki's hairpin. The young man kept it with him as a sort of lucky charm, or something to keep him grounded, like he was using it for right now. "I'm sorry about bailing on you all last week, but you shouldn't have ambushed me like that!"

"We know, and we are very sorry." Nekomaru said, though some of the rooms occupants didn't seem sorry about it at all. "Though, after all that, we would like to start today with you sharing."

"I figured…" He knew this would happen. How bor- He shook his head to clear the thought. "Let's get this over with." He gave the hairpin a squeeze, tipping his head down to stare at his shoes. "I remembered something this week."

"An Izuru memory?" Someone asked, and Hajime shook his head.

"I- I got my first memory of the Kamukura Project." The air in the room seemed to drop a few degrees. Nobody knew what to say. "I was getting awake brain surgery. I think they were working on my language center so I could excel in language related talents. The surgery didn't hurt, I think they were just poking around and then asking me to speak in different languages. The rest of my body was really sore, though, and I had lot's of IVs and a central line. They had retrained me arms and legs. I can't remember why I was so sore- I think I might have had to do with combat talents because I'm pretty sure I had bruised ribs- at some point I started to panic." The hand that wasn't in his pocket clenched onto his pants and he continued in a softer tone. "I asked them to stop, I didn't want this anymore. They just… made a comment about how the subject's personality was still too strong and then asked me to say something in French." Something wet landed on his pants, at which point he had realized he was crying. "Damn. Damnit." He started hastily rubbing the tears away.

"Hajime-" It was a female voice, he couldn't tell which it was.

"Don't. It was my own fault, I signed up for it. My parents and I even signed waivers saying Hope's Peak wasn't liable for any permanent injury or death. It could have killed me, and I knew that, and I did it anyway." Did want to be useless, didn't want to be talentless. And for what? At what cost? He was spiraling, he tried to pull out his Izuru, but he couldn't- he couldn't.

"Hajime." There was a hand on his shoulder, and he was suddenly dragged back to Earth. Pale skin, eyes, and hair. Komaeda. "There's our leader!"

"I'm sorry."

"You didn't do anything wrong. I admire your drive to improve yourself, you were willing to risk life and limb to get a talent. So noble and-" The signs of a self-deprecating rant were starting to appear and so Mahiru pulled him away.

"Alright, enough of that."

"Hajime, you mad a bad choice, but that doesn't make you a bad person. That fault lands on the people who did that to you. What happened to you will have consequences for the rest of your life. It's okay to be upset about it." Nekomaru said, reeling things back in. Damn, this was hard, Hajime normally did this part. He was pretty sure a good half of it was ripped straight from past sessions.

"Yeah." He seemed to a except that answer, looking up, his tears slowing before gazing at Peko "You had a lot of flashbacks this week, I witnessed a few from the vents." That was firm signal that Hajime was done, and not wanting him to flee again, the room decided to move on. Maybe they could get him to make more progress next week. Peko started talking about her flashbacks.

**Author's Note:**

** So… I lost steam on this one. Inspiration ran dry, motivation disappeared with the lack of interaction on the story. I know to not get my hopes up now. Anyway, the next chapter I have planned is a little number called **_**The Race for Hajime's V-Card! **_**Let's hope I actually write it. Till next time, duckies!**


End file.
